Urban fantasy books are often saturated with the kick ass, snarky heroine, the requisite love interest, the paranormal creatures, cool weapons, and the evil bad guy or gal. Yes – this book has all that, but it felt like it had more. Set in the corrupt town of Ashland, Tennessee, Spider’s Bite has a dirty, gritty feel. Gin Blanco is known as The Spider, a female assassin. She is extremely good at her job and is well compensated for her skills. Gin has standards, a kind of moral code. She does not kill children or the innocent. I liked the originality of this book. While there are vampires in this book, their abilities are not really expanded upon, except that they seem to heal quickly. There are also giants and dwarves. There are also people that can control elemental magic – from air, fire, stone, ice, etc. Gin is an elemental. She has the ability to use stone and ice magic. While stone and ice are not the most powerful elemental magics out there, it is hinted that Gin has some extraordinary powers. I would have liked to have had more information on these elemental magic practitioners – How did they get the magic? Were they born with it? Can they learn it? The world building in this book was intriguing. Basically, it felt like our world but with paranormal elements. Gin lives in a corrupt city which is policed by a corrupt police force. Even the organized crime elements felt like a paranormal mafia. Our heroine Gin Blanco comes from tragic circumstances. Her family died in a fire, leaving her homeless. She is “found” by Fletcher, who gives her odd jobs in exchange for food. She later becomes an assassin and Fletcher acts as her handler. I found Fletcher to be a most interesting character, even though he was not around for most of the book. I liked all the people that surrounded Gin. Finnegan Lane (Finn), Fletcher’s son was a wonderful character. I so wanted Gin to be his love interest, but it was not happening. Finn was a great supporting character. I had trouble believing the attraction between Gin and Donovan Craig. I did not like the way that Donovan treated Gin. I found that his character fell flat for me because of his condescending attitude towards Gin, even though he was alive because of her. The villain was especially evil and scary. I enjoyed the mystery of figuring out who she was and I was pleasantly surprised when I had guessed wrong. I loved the ending and it made me rush out to find the next book in the series Web of Lies. Check out my review on Badass Book Reviews
